To offer an opposing view to Professor Leaman's (and nothing particularly philosophical): there is some evidence that circumcision reduces the risk of contracting certain STDs, such as herpes and HIV. Though there is disagreement about this evidence, if it is substantiated, then this benefit of circumcision might outweigh the reasons one might take it to be cruel. By analogy, we vaccinate our children because of the health benefits despite the fact that it causes them pain (and in my experience, they tend not to consent to the shots, even after they are old enough to provide something like consent!). From my experience observing circumcision performed and discussing it with my OB/GYN friends who perform many of them, I'm also not sure it causes that much pain to the newborn, though it is very difficult to know, and not just for philosophical reasons having to do with the problem of other minds. Finally, I suspect some boys may be unhappy if they (well, a certain part of them) don't look like...

Soccer (futbol) is the best sport, and the World Cup is the best sporting event. I believe this is as true as any normative truth can be, but I may be biased... and I may be suffering WCW (World Cup Withdrawal).

Yes, there is, and its an exciting emerging interdisciplinary field of study. Neurophilosophy is the field that studies the intersection of the neurosciences and philosophy. On the one hand, it is a branch of philosophy of mind that considers how information from the neurosciences might inform traditional philosophical questions about the nature of consciousness, language, perception, moral reasoning, intelligence, and human (and animal) psychology more generally. On the other hand, neurophilosophy involves applying the methods of philosophy of science to the neurosciences (e.g., considering what a good theory or experiement in neuroscience looks like, how best to understand causal interactions in neuroscience, how best to understand the relations among various levels of neuroscientific explanation and the levels of explanation in other sciences, such as physics and psychology, etc.). A related branch of neurophilosophy is neuroethics , which studies how neuroscience can inform ethical...

Yes and no. On the one hand, yes, of course, because you have received the content and presumably gained all or most of the benefits that one gets by reading the book, such as the moral lessons, the aesthetic insights, the entertainment value, the psychological insights, etc. And remember that before printing presses, almost all knowledge and stories were transmitted orally. The only reason you could not claim to have read it is that you did not read it. And there are some differences between getting information by reading it and by hearing it and some advantages of each. In short, if someone is daft enough to complain that you didn't really read a book after you've spent hours listening to it, ask them if they'd make the same complaint to a blind person (or to someone who sat through Homer's telling of The Iliad or to someone who saw a Shakespeare play performed). And then ask them if they ever read the book...

I'm afraid there are no easy answers to these very big and important questions. But here are a couple quick responses that sometimes get people who think they are relativists to think about it more. 1. The opposite of Objectivism about morality (there being some Absolute Good grounded in some trans-human source such as God or the Eternal Form or whatever) need not be Relativism (there being no facts or truths about what is morally better or worse). Rather, there might be Normative standards of better and worse moral beliefs and behaviors. Is there an Objective fact regarding who is the Absolute Best rock band (or artist or movie or politician) of all time? What trans-human source would (could) ground such facts? But do negative answers to these questions thereby mean that there are simply no standards by which to judge which are the better and worse rock bands (artists, movies, politicians, etc.)? Surely, the Beatles, the Stones, U2, and Led Zeppelin are contenders and the...

The statistical norm might be defined by what is true of the majority. But why on earth would we want to define the moral norm solely in terms of what the majority of people do? That would mean that, by definition, vegetarianism, atheism, and marriage between different races was wrong. It would mean that you were morally wrong if you were an abolitionist in the South or fought for equality for women in America in the early 20th century (I'm not sure when that became the majority position) or fight for equality for women in many countries today. For that matter, it would make it wrong to be a Jew or a man who goes to college or a firefighter. Perhaps what you mean is that homosexuality could be considered biologically "non-normal" (it's not clear exactly what that might mean, since whatever we do is allowed by our biology). That may not be true, depending on what one means by biologically normal. But even if it were, it would not make it morally wrong, since lots of biologically "non...

I think the answer is yes, many public figures have some moral obligations beyond those of non-public figures, at least if we make a few assumptions: 1. People want and need role models, especially children. 2. The actions of the people we take to be role models influences us, at a minimum by making us happier when they do impressive things (e.g., athletic performances, wonderful art, inspiring political decisions) and by making us sadder when they do despicable things (e.g., betraying their family, embezzling, acting hypocritically, etc.), and possibly more so to the extent that they make it more likely that people emulate their immoral behavior. 3. The public figures know that 1 and 2 are true--that is, they know their behavior is public and that it may influence people's attitudes and behaviors. 4. As you say, there are some facts about what is moral and immoral. Having said this, two caveats: 1. The assumptions above apply wherever people have role models, so to the...

This is an important question, since it might be that one of the reasons we worry about whether we have free will is that free will is required for life to be meaningful. If so, then any threat to our free will would also make life meaningless. (Actually, as I write that sentence, it makes me wonder if a person's life can only be meaningless , in the ordinary sense of that word, if it has a possibility of being meaningful--is a worm's life meaningless or does that word simply not apply?) But is free will required for life to have meaning? As usual (with philosophical questions like this), a lot depends on what we mean by 'free will' and 'meaningful life'. My own view is that a theory of free will needs to be about the powers of control that matter to us, so it doesn't make sense to define free will in such a way that losing it would not matter and such that having it would not matter. If, for instance, free will is defined as some magical ability to exist outside of the natural order of...

Sure! On the one hand, you see people presenting some strong arguments for competing political philosophies and different moral values, and ideally we get to vote based on a more informed understanding of these competing views, to the extent that different candidates (or referendums or amendments) embody those views. Democracy in action! On the other hand (and alas, too often, especially on cable news and talk radio), you see examples of really bad arguments and fallacies, so you get to practice your philosophical skills critiquing them. Ideally, of course, citizens would be educated well enough to find (and to appreciate, hence financially supporting) good sources of argument and information, and those sources would provide more substance and less heat than we see in our current media. And ideally, our politicians would be able to present their philosophies and policies in a way that allowed us to see their consequences and judge their merits, and that allowed them to make good...

Well, if "determinism" is defined as "the opposite of free will" or "whatever takes away free will", then they are definitely incompatible, but in a really uninteresting way, one that could not generate so much philosophical debate. Sometimes, people think that's what determinism means (and some dictionaries define it that way), and of course, that makes it very hard to convince people that compatibilism is not crazy. But compatibilism is not crazy. In fact, the majority of philosophers are compatibilists, and my work in experimental philosophy studying ordinary people's intuitions about free will suggests most folk are compatibilists too, once we make sure they understand what determinism means (not that majorities cannot believe crazy things, but if we are trying to figure out how to define "free will" and its relevance to our practices of moral and legal responsibility, then understanding the way people actually understand the issues is surely relevant). So, why isn't compatibilism crazy? ...